


My voice a beacon in the night

by leiascully



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fights, Hurt/Comfort, Psionovores - Freeform, Psychic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 05:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing the Doctor knows for certain anymore is that he loves his wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My voice a beacon in the night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Independence1776](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Independence1776/gifts).



> Timeline: Post-S6  
> Concrit: Welcome  
> A/N: Bless the TARDIS Wiki for its masses of information. Thanks to [**coffeesuperhero**](http://coffeesuperhero.livejournal.com/) for looking this over. This was to fill the prompt "Sometime after the WoRS, the Doctor is severely injured (mentally, physically, or psychically) and River (and Rose, if so inclined) takes care of him."  
>  Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ and all related characters are the property of Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat, and BBC. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

The only thing the Doctor knows for certain anymore is that he loves his wife. There's no room for any other thoughts in his head; there are only shadows. The shadows have teeth like tiny sharp needles, and their words are edged in broken glass. When they speak, it scrapes along the inside of his skull. _Time Lord? Lord of nothing but a wayward box,_ they whisper. _Can barely control his bowels, much less his destiny._

He isn't sure how he spends his time. There are only the whispers. Sometimes he blinks and he's somewhere else. Now and again, the shadows hiss at him to feed himself, so he eats whatever he finds. The food has no flavor. The spoon is very heavy when he lifts it to his cracked lips.

 _There is no escape,_ the shadows tell him. _Starving will not save you. You are nothing. You belong to us._

How long the shadows have been there, he doesn't know. Since the beginning of time, perhaps. They make him move. He wanders mindlessly through the TARDIS, through lost corridors and forgotten rooms. The shadows have mined his memories; his head is an empty attic, an abandoned house with marks in the dust to show where the furniture used to be and mice nibbling through the last supports. The shadows have gone through and taken every recollection, pored over them, chewed them up and spat out the gristle.

 _They would have been better off without you,_ they say. Their voices crackle and scratch but no matter how he jerks his head, he can't shake them away. _Where is Susan now? Where is your family? Everyone you loved is cinders, caught out of time so they burn forever. Your home is a living hell. Every one should curse your name. You left Sarah Jane. You left the Brigadier. A man with all the time on his hands and he couldn't spare a moment for his friends. Did you ever really love them, or only the way that they loved you?_

He wants to tell the shadows they're wrong, but he can't. He has committed every crime they charge him with. He was never innocent.

 _Rose would have been better off as a shop girl all her life,_ the shadows say, their voices creaking like the boards in an old house on a dark night. _Martha would have kept the peace in her family and never nearly lost her heart and her life flinging herself after you. Donna would have done better marrying that spider than following you. Amy would never have waited, would never have trusted you, would never have been taken over and over by those who wanted to do you harm. Rory spent two thousand years as a plastic man because of you. And the other one - she would have grown up happy and normal. She would have had pigtails and tea sets instead of pistols and the law closing in._

They never say River's name. So he does, once, his voice as dry and cracked as his lips, the word barely loud enough for himself to hear.

"River," he whispers.

The shadows miss nothing. They screech at him. _You are nothing. You are nothing. You belong to us._ He presses his palms to his temples, but it's no good. They flay his mind with the sharp-edged truths they have mined from his head: he is a coward and a traitor. He has contributed nothing to the sum total of good in the universe. He is a killer. He is a bringer of war. He is the oncoming storm, destroying all in his path. He is without mercy. He cannot be redeemed.

He sinks to the floor under the console of the TARDIS, not certain how he got there. The shadows let him lie there, curled up in the fetal position, the Time Lord Pathetic, just as they've always said. "River," he whispers.

Later there is a flash of light. He closes his eyes too late, slow and foolish.

"Hello, sweetie," River says. He stares up at her, helpless. Afterimage blurs his vision: she goes from pleased to concerned in one smeary blink. She crouches next to him. "Who did this to you?"

He gazes at her for a long, long moment before he can speak. "I did," he says. His voice is a croak. The words catch in his throat like the bones of fish. "For my sins." The shadows howl their agreement. He deserves this, for his uncountable sins.

Her face is tight with fury. The light from the console catches her hair, turning her curls into a blazing halo. "Oh, my love," she says, each word as heavy as a stone. "They'll pay for this."

"River," he says. It's the only word he has left. The rest are gone, shredded by the furious shrieking of the shadows in his mind. "River." It's his anchor.

"Never mind," she says, gentle now. She touches his face. Her fingers are warm. He looks up at her. "You'll be all right. I'm here now. Nobody's going to hurt you any more."

The shadows tell him that she's wrong.

\+ + + +

If he weren't so exhausted, he would scream. Sometimes, before River came, he could see them. They would coagulate into ghosts of his guilt. There was Rose, first and always, Rose whom he took from her simple life and flung into an alternate dimension. Rose who loved him with her whole heart, whom he could have given more than just one of his in return. Rose who can never come home to the world of her birth. Martha, who had everything before he came and whose whole world he turned upside down. Donna, who got even worse than Rose, really, right back in the miserable place she started from, but she made it out on her own, eventually. Sarah Jane, abandoned. The Bridgadier, abandoned. Romana. Susan. The Rani.

They were solid, his phantoms. He could put out a hand and touch them. They could put out a hand and rake his cheek with sharp fingernails or swing a fist into his ribs. He was no match for any of them; they beat him black and blue on more than one occasion. River's presence buys him that much relief, at least; the shadows stay inside his head. He is not always sure where in the TARDIS she is, but she doesn't leave. She will come through with a book in her hand or her hair wet from the pool and caress his face.

"I'll find a way, my love," she promises. "I'll find a way to get them out of your head."

"River," he says, and hopes she understands. The joy on her face is worth the hours of pain that follow. He wishes he hadn't been born with the pulse of the universe in his veins; he wishes he didn't know exactly how many seconds their hissing and caterwauling lasted. He wishes he couldn't feel the dizzy spin and sway of the universe and how little it will care when he is no longer a part of it. The stars will go on burning. The boundaries of the universe will keep expanding.

He drifts through the TARDIS, less aimless than before. The shadows drive him on, but though they scream just as shrill as always, they seem less purposeful. The Doctor follows the directions of his own aimless feet. He's always aware of River's presence. He think she is spending a great deal of time in the library - she always seems to have a book in her hand when he sees her, or a datapad of some sort. She scanned him once or twice with his own sonic screwdriver, which was something of an indignity, but no matter: he doesn't deserve dignity.

Eventually she comes to him with a light in her eyes. "I know what they are," she says. The shadows howl, trying to drown her out, but they can't. Her voice is in his soul. Her voice is in his bones. River could whisper his name in the middle of a typhoon and he would hear her. "I know what they are," she says, and if he could feel anything anymore, he would be relieved. He would be overjoyed. Instead he blinks at her, hollow inside.

"They're Psionovores," she says. "Nasty little buggers - you've met them before. They just sort of float about invisibly, soaking up your grief and anger and sorrow and loathing until they have enough strength to manifest themselves, and then they move into your mind, thriving on your bad thoughts and your sad thoughts. They can only use the bits of your mind that you've shut off and you're not really conscious of, and there are plenty of doors in your head, so they just invaded the bits you're not using. And oh, my love, they found a rich source of sorrow in your mind, didn't they." She strokes his face.

"They have manifested," he croaks. His voice feels dusty and raw in his throat, but the longer she's near him, the more words come back. "They nearly took my head off dressed as Rose. I had bruises all over."

"Then they're stronger than I suspected," River says. "Still, they're no match for me." She grins, wild and fierce, and the Doctor loves her. He's known empirically this entire time that he loved her: it was the only emotion he could remember, but he couldn't really feel it until she was right in front of him. He feels, for the first time in a long while, the little flame licking at the inside of his ribs. His hearts beat out of time, painfully thudding as the shadows shred his thoughts into tatters. But even with only scraps of his mind to himself, he knows that he believes her. River can do anything.

"Save me," he says.

"With a kiss," she says, her eyes fond. "Just like the last time."

She bends her head slowly and brushes her lips against his. The shadows howl, but she cups her hands over his ears as if she can hear the noise in his head and kisses him again. It's a slow, deep, thoughtful kiss this time, like the one she used to give him all her lives. She's magic, his wife. The little flame inside his chest is kindling into a hearthfire, something to keep him warm all through the night.

"There," she says, leaning back. "It's a start. Can't do it all at once, but don't you worry, my love, we'll have those awful things out of here in a heartbeat. Or two heartbeats, for you. They want bad thoughts? I'll crowd them out with all of the good ones. You are loved, Doctor, by so many, and very most by me. Sit quietly, sweetie. I'll be back in a bit."

The shadows are still screaming inside his head, but it's as if they're a little distance away now. He can think whole thoughts. He can breathe.

"River," he says to the retreating halo of her hair, and for a moment, the shadows are silent.

\+ + + +

She comes back later and takes him by the hand, leading him to her bedroom. He'd blush, but he's too distracted by the raspy accusations in the back of his head. The shadows are quieter when she's around, but they're still there. At least his words come back, so he can speak again. She wraps him up in a blanket and sits him down on her sofa, putting a cup of tea into his hand.

"Now then, Doctor dear," she says, curling next to him, her knees against his thighs. "I didn't have a pyramid handy to build a beacon and broadcast your indisposal to the universe, but I think I can make you feel plenty loved all on my own."

"That's all right," he says. "Rather not destroy the universe today. Not feeling up to it."

"You sound better already," she says approvingly. "Drink your tea, my love, and I'll tell you a story." She reaches over for a book and smooths the pages open with loving fingers.

"In the olden days, we were a people oppressed and chained, until the Doctor came. He gave us the courage to stand up for ourselves. He gave us the keys to our chains. He freed us from our bondage and brought us into a golden age of prosperity. We owe the Doctor our lives."

"What is that?" he asks.

"My thesis," she says. "A hundred thousand stories of your kindness, my love. A hundred thousand stories of your generosity and your goodness. Thousands upon thousands of planets and peoples singing your praises, for your selflessness and your aid in their time of need."

"Hah," he says, sipping at his tea. "And two hundred thousand stories of my mishaps, is it?"

She rubs his shoulder. "Not nearly so many as that. Somehow, even your mishaps turn into happy stories, most of the time."

"Give me a day like that, where everyone lives," he says to the air.

"We've had so many days like that," she says. "You and I. You and my parents. You and Martha and Rose and Donna and Jack. Oh, yes, I know all your history, sweetie. I know how many worlds you've saved and how many lives you've given back. It was wonderful, writing this, because I got to take down the stories of everyone who loves you. And oh, there were so many of them."

She hands him the book and takes his mug of tea. He flips through it. Fond memories there, bitter ones there, but yes, he remembers that, and that, and those. He comes across the tale of a disappointment, or to put it more accurately, a disaster, and the shadows howl in triumph. But River puts out a hand and laces her fingers through his and the shadows retreat again, grumbling. She lays her head on his shoulder. He kisses her wild hair.

"They love you," she tells him. "Everywhere, people love you. Every time and every place in the universe, someone loves you. Someone keeps telling the stories of your goodness and your bravery. Any bad deed you might have done, my dear, you've more than made up for. And I should know, of all people, what it feels like to fight back from the dark. So if you think I'm going to let you slip away into the shadows, you've got another think coming, and so have they."

The shadows snarl, but as long as River's there, they can't wound him the way they did before. She protects him. He believes he is loved when she is there. He believes he is worthy. She pulls his face down and kisses him and oh, he believes. Nobody like River Song would kiss him like that if he didn't deserve it. He trusts her judgement much more than his own. They sit there for hours while she tells him the stories of all the good he's done and the adventures they've had.

"You've changed lives and mostly for the better," she tells him. "That's really all anyone can hope to do. You've certainly done a great deal more than most."

She puts her arms around him and holds him close. He can hear the quiet rhythm of her pulse and the sigh of her breath.

"I called and you came," he says.

"I'll always come for you," she says. "'Til death do us part, husband."

"I suppose I did marry you," he says.

"I suppose you did," she tells him. "So don't even begin to tell me that no one loves you."

"That looked like a pretty good kiss," he says. "It's a shame I didn't get to be involved in it, except as a robot copy of myself."

"It went a bit like this," she says, and her lips meet his.

Inside his head, there is blessed, blessed silence.

\+ + + +

The shadows fight back, of course. Every time that River goes to have a swim, or every time the Doctor wakes up and she's still sleeping, the shadows are there. But they're weaker each day. He holds the thought of her love up like a shield against them, and when he remembers that River loves him, fiercely and joyfully and with her whole brave heart, it's easier to remember that Rose loved him, and Amy, and Donna, and Martha, and all the rest. The shadows squeal and shriek but he can block them out a bit. Even just having River's things around him helps, so he stays in her room. His mind is still mostly his own; he has his words and his sense. He can choose when he eats, and he can taste his food. Small mercies, but great relief all the same.

His thoughts are slower. He feels as if he has great scars across his brain, places where the synapses just don't fire the way they ought to. Perhaps he'll heal in time. Perhaps he never will. Well, no matter. He's got too much in his head to start with.

For a week, he has some measure of peace, nothing unbearable from the shadows. They howl in the back of his mind, but after the Time Wars, he's used to hearing his regrets and failures laid out in a list, though they're usually in his own voice. River stays near him most of the time, at least in the same room. He wishes he could make better use of this time with her; he knows he should cherish every moment of their love, but somehow it's enough just to be close, to be able to look up and smile at her across the room.

It's one of those moments when River is gone - bathing, he thinks - that the shadows launch their last attack. Suddenly it's as if his whole brain is screaming. He claps his hands over his ears, but of course that doesn't end the noise, only sends echoes back again. He's curled up on the floor, no defense against his head splitting at the seams but to make himself as small as possible. In front of him, another Doctor materializes, blurry around the edges, but recognizable.

"Your worst enemy," it hisses. It crouches next to him and slaps his face hard. "Fool. Coward. What kind of a man is his own worst enemy?"

"You're only dust," he chokes out. "River told me so."

"Am I?" the thing says. "Aren't we all? Goodbye, Doctor. Dust to dust."

The foot that slams into his chest feels real enough. The faux Doctor kicks him over and over as the shadows are still shrieking in his mind. The Doctor is curled into a ball, whimpering and pathetic, but between the pain in his head and the pain in his bones, he's completely incapacitated. It will never end, he thinks desperately. He will be here forever, enduring all of this as penance for his sins. He will never see River again, or any of the rest. That is the worst of it all, when he knows they have so many more adventures to share.

"River," he gasps, and somewhere a door bursts open. A few agonizing heartbeats later, she skids into the room, wrapped in a dressing gown with her hair wet and heavy down her back and fire in her eyes. The faux Doctor growls and lands another few blows before River reaches it. It's fast, but she's faster. Her hands and feet fly to strike and to block. The Doctor watches her through eyes squinted half shut against the pain. She's incredible. He never stood a chance against her.

The faux Doctor is strong, stronger than River, maybe. It hammers down blows on her that seem to hurt, though she grits her teeth and goes on fighting. The Doctor can hear her every grunt and gasp, even through the noise in his mind. He should get up and help her, but he can't move. She's the warrior of the family, bless the Ponds and their crusading spirit. The faux Doctor is pressing her back, the pair of them moving across the room, until suddenly the Doctor splits into two. One of them glides back across the room toward the Doctor, who closes his eyes.

"No!" River shouts. He hears her bare feet thudding closer and risks peeking again through his swollen eyes. She's taken on both of them, moving faster than he would have thought possible, magnificent in her anger. It was a feint, he realizes, when she was falling back, to draw them away from him. The two Doctors merge and split again, this time into three Doctors, two boxing River in while the third returns to batter him, kicking his shins and stepping on his toes.

"Bugger this," River growls, and she dives for the bed. She reaches under the pillow and pulls out her pistol, flipping a switch and zapping all three of the faux Doctors before the real Doctor can blink. "That's better."

The Doctor gasps with relief and stretches out for a moment, but the shadows haven't finished with him: they shriek and howl and scream and rasp until he's screaming too, helpless. River is on the floor next to him before he knows it, stroking his face.

"Sweetie, sweetie, it'll be all right," she assures him, and all he can do is look at her. "Tell me when they've gone."

She pins him to the floor under the weight of her warm body and kisses him. She kisses him as if the world is ending again. She kisses him as if she's the only thing that can save him. She kisses him and he remembers how to breathe. The shadows wail, but River's love is bigger and stronger than they are. River's love could conquer universes. River's love could conquer a Time Lord, and maybe even Time itself. Slowly the voices in his head die out, banished, and it's as if all the doors in his head have been opened up and a fresh breeze blows through. He takes his hands off his ears and strokes River's back, suddenly realizing she's lying on top of him, nearly not dressed. She pulls back.

"Better?" she asks.

"Much," he says.

"No more noisy intruders?"

"Not a one," he says.

"Excellent," she says, rolling off him and helping him up. He winces and untucks his shirt: there are bruises already forming on his ribs. River examines him with a calculating eye.

"Into bed with you, my love," she says. "I'm going to finish my bath, and then I'll be back with some painkillers. In the meantime, you won't perish, you'll just feel like you have done. Don't worry - it'll be even worse in the morning."

"Wonderful," he says through gritted teeth. "Something to look forward to."

"It won't be pleasant," she says, slipping under his arm to support him, "but I'll be here for every moment of it. Won't that be entertaining, to see me play the nurse? I don't do it nearly so well as Rory does."

"All the same, I'd rather have you," he says, leaning on her as she helps him over to the bed. "To have and to hold, through sickness and in health and all that."

"And have me you will," she promises. "To salve your wounds and blot the sweat from your mighty brow, et cetera."

He lies down in the bed with a groan and she helps him off with his shoes and tucks the covers gently in around him. He catches at her hand and pulls her down onto the edge of the bed. "I should be blotting the sweat from your brow, really. I would have been lost without you, River."

She brushes his hair back from his forehead. "Oh, sweetie. You always find a way out."

"Not sure I would have this time," he says.

"Then I suppose you're lucky to have your very own bespoke psychopath," she says lightly.

"Very," he agrees.

She kisses his forehead. "Try to rest, sweetie. I'll be back in a bit. If you get bored, there are some books on the bedside table."

He clasps her hand and lets her fingers slip from his. When she's gone, he stares at the ceiling for a while enjoying the silence, and then reaches over for a book. The first thing he picks up is her thesis again, and he flips through it. So very many stories about him and her and all the others. He misses every single one of them. He wishes he could tell them so, but there's only River with whom he can redeem his failings.

"That was a good one," he says to himself, and "Oooh, I'd nearly forgotten that time" and "Goodness, that was clever of me, wasn't it?" And after a while, he's laughing, bright enough to drive any shadows away, although it hurts his ribs and his chest and everything else. When River comes back, toweling her hair, he smiles, and she smiles, and he knows that everything will be all right, for now. His bruises will heal and his mind will come back, and River will help him with all of it, because he is loved. And he will be worthy of that love, and give love in return, and the universe will keep on spinning, and together they'll do good. Time can be rewritten. Debts can be repaid. River Song loves him and believes he is a good man and that's enough.

He holds out his hand and she smiles and takes it. She takes a small bottle out of her pocket and tips two pills into his palm.

"Take these," she says. "They'll help with the pain. You'll be meddling for justice again in no time. They will make you sleepy, but you'll feel better quicker."

"Thank you," he says.

She hands him a glass of water. "You're welcome."

"For all of it, I mean," he says, downing the pills with a swallow of water and grimacing at the bitterness of them.

"I know," she says, and takes the water back. She sets the glass on the bedside table, and good thing too, because it's barely been any time and she's already looking glowy around the edges. He slips down in the bed, his aching head very heavy on the soft pillows, and she curls up beside him.

"Sleep, honey," she tells him. "We'll soldier on without you for a little while."

"I love you," he tells her.

"I love you too, sweetie," she says, sounding faintly amused. "Now sleep."

He drifts away into the quiet, finding peace at last.

\+ + + +

It's a slow process, healing. He limps for a few days and River clucks over him. She makes him undress, which is faintly embarrassing, but she puts some sort of marvelous balm on his bruises that heals them days faster than they would have done otherwise, and it certainly takes the pain away. It doesn't hurt that she kisses each one better. She draws him baths and puts things in them and makes him soak for nearly an hour each time, but it does seem to help.

"Show me the TARDIS," she says, when she knows he's itching for a good run, so he leads her through all the rooms he thought were lost, telling her about each one. He should have known better; the TARDIS never deletes anything forever. Nothing lost is really lost as long as someone remembers, and the TARDIS has the longest memory of all of them. He tells River stories about all of his companions - some of them she knows already, but she listens anyway, just nodding along. But it helps. Reliving those days reminds him of all the joy they had in them. He must have done something right, to make people so happy. Little by little, the blank scars in his memory fill in. Little by little, he feels whole again. He reaches for River's hand and they wander through his history together.

When he's feeling better, they stop off on a new planet for a cup of tea and a biscuit. River insists on doing an environment check first and he lets her. They sit in peace at a little table and drink tea and eat biscuits and fairy cakes and finger sandwiches and he thinks fondly of the human race and how they bring a little bit of home with them, wherever they go. He's done a decent job of saving them, and in return, they've been splendid. Marvelous, even. Just look at the spirit of them, spreading out through all of space and saying, "Well, we're here, so you'd better love us."

He looks at River, who is watching him over the rim up her cup and smiling. "Feeling better, sweetie?" she asks.

"Much," he tells her. "Thank you."

"No need to thank me," she says. "Someone's got to be there to help you out of your scrapes."

"You were my anchor," he says. "You were all I had left. You kept me from falling into a dark place, River."

"Only paying you back for what you did for me," she says. "I never would have been River Song if you and my parents hadn't believed I would be. Now there's a dark place, living out the rest of your days wreaking havoc and ruining lives for the joy of it."

"We'll keep each other honest, then," he says. "You and me, River Song, up against the big bad universe, setting things right. What do you say?"

"I do," she says with a wink.

He leans forward and kisses her and all he knows is happiness.


End file.
